Music teacher jailed for having sex with teenage student loses appeal

Mark Russell

A music teacher who had sex with one of his teenage students has lost his bid to overturn his five-year jail term.

The teacher had applied for leave to appeal his conviction and sentence after a County Court jury found him guilty of three charges of sexual penetration of a child under 16 but not guilty of five other child sex charges. The jury failed to reach a verdict on nine other charges.

The Court of Appeal’s Chief Justice Marilyn Warren and Justices Robert Redlich and Mark Weinberg rejected the teacher’s application on Friday.

In their judgment, Justice Weinberg said the teacher had preyed on the girl between 2004 and 2005, when she was aged 14 and 15 in Years 9 and 10 and he was aged 33.

‘‘The prosecution case was that for just over a year ... the applicant (the teacher) repeatedly engaged in acts of sexual penetration with the complainant,’’ the judge said.

‘‘These offences took place at a series of different locations. They included both her home and his, the school itself, and his car.’’

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Justice Weinberg said the man continued to teach the girl up to 2007 when she was in Year 12 and would accompany her to various musical performances.

‘‘The applicant became a family friend,’’ the judge said.

‘‘He was invited, on a regular basis, to the complainant’s home for dinner.

‘‘He also went on two camping holidays with her family during the school mid-year breaks in 2004 and 2005.’’

The girl claimed that shortly after the mid-year break in 2004, the teacher invited her to sing at a wedding function in Melbourne, accompanying him while he played the piano.

When the teacher was later driving the girl home, he was ‘‘taking drags with his cigarette’’ and blowing the smoke in her direction.

‘‘He blew the smoke into her mouth and was getting closer and closer until eventually he kissed her on the lips at some traffic lights,’’ the judge said.

‘‘He then pulled over and they kissed on the lips passionately for ‘quite some time, perhaps five, ten minutes’.

‘‘The complainant could not 'really strongly remember' whether there was any conversation. She felt ‘overwhelmed, confused, just kind of swept away in whatever was happening’. He then drove her home.’’

On another occasion, the teacher and the girl met during class time in a small room at the school where the performing arts were taught.

The room was elevated and looked out over two large classrooms. It was not possible to see into the room from either of the two classrooms below.

The girl said the teacher locked the door and they had sex while he sat on a chair and she sat on his lap.

The judge said the girl claimed the teacher later gave her a paper bag containing a vibrator and some lingerie.

There were two other occasions when the girl was babysitting the teacher’s young son when he had sex with her.

Justice Weinberg said the teacher’s defence during his trial was that the girl had ‘‘either concocted all of these allegations, or that for a combination of other reasons, her evidence was unreliable’’.

The three judges said they did not believe the jury got it wrong when convicting the teacher who was jailed for five years with a non-parole period of three years.